House Building in late April and May.

Now for the promised update in pictures and as few of words as possible . . .

April 24 - Concrete forms come off for foundation/basement walls. We met with our contractor, Ron, (he's holding the large roll of house plans) to go over where we wanted plumbing in the basement. The orange spray painted areas is where we were placing where toilets, sinks, tubs, etc would go. We figured we would want 1 full bath and one half bath on the "finished" side of the basement (if we finish it - aka, can afford it after all the "unknown" expenses) plus a plumbed in pipe for a kitchenette if we ever finish the guest suite and a laundry sink on the unfinished side for Wade's workshop/storage area. We also have the sump pump and water heater plumbed in.

Before

After

April 27 - This plastic is down to protect our home from radon gas. It's much cheaper to do this (probably around $200?) than to have to later come back and put in a mitigation system (around $2K). They will pour concrete over the plastic and a pipe in the plastic coming up through the attic and roof of the house to dispel any radon. Since we have a mitigation system in our current house and know the high risks in our area we wanted to do this.

April 28 - It's Saturday! After Andrew's third football game for the Upward spring season, we went up the land and worked. Andrew got his first try at weedeating. ;) We also cut up a fallen tree and burnt a pile of sticks and dead wood. Two interesting things happened this Saturday. 1) I got my second case of poison ivy (or what I really think is a reaction to Virginia creeper vine) and 2) We saw a coyote take off out of our woods when we arrived to work. Specifically, *I* saw the coyote and scared Wade to death when I sucked in air quickly and grabbed his arm. LOL

May 3 - Subfloor goes on as well as the support beam down the middle of our basement. Actually they messed up and put the support beam in the wrong place. We paid extra to have 16 inch trusses to support the house instead of 12 inch trusses (like $2K more). We were dividing our basement down the middle in two 18 foot wide areas. They had to later move the wall. This was a huge concern for us but it ended up not being a big deal (surprisingly!).

May 4 - Framing of rooms begin. Lots of lumber had been delivered and was waiting to be used.

  

Plus, the utilities are finally brought up through the pipes to the house.

We tried starting another fire and was finally able to get it to burn after several attempts on previous visits (due to rain). Andrew credits it to the fact that we used his TCAP practice book to start the fire. This was his idea to use as he "wanted to see it burn". His words. He was over the TCAP tests at this point in the school year.

May 12 - More framing and they have some of the Zip system green boards on. I have to say that up to this point the house looked really small. The rooms looked like they weren't as big as they were supposed to be. We measured almost every room to see. They were right on. It just seems small at this point. Once the walls get fully built, covered and the ceiling is on, things begin to look true to size.

View out the dining room windows as I wash dishes at the kitchen island. My mountains!! LOVE!!! :)

View looking through the front door. You'll be able to see straight out the back to the pasture and woods behind us. :)

May 18 - We knew there were deer on our property but we hadn't seen them yet - just their traces (footprints, places where they bed down, etc). We finally came upon two does while coming up the drive this evening. Unfortunately in the moving vehicle I didn't get a good picture. LOL 

The house at this point in the process.

May 19 - We celebrated Elizabeth's birthday this evening at the land with one of her friends. The field had been hayed that the week so we were able to get the four-wheeler out to finally play. They hadn't raked or baled the hay yet so we drove in between the cut hay. Some photos from that evening. . . .

This photo gives perspective as to how far off the road the house sits. We have 16.75 acres. People who have even been working at our house do not realize that of that acreage we have about 1.5 acres in woods and a good third of the acreage (probably more) is in the back behind the house and seems to be hidden by the woods.

Back of house:

Andrew got to drive the four-wheeler a little by himself. The next day we went back up after eating dinner at my mom and dad's and he did drive it by himself. I think Wade told him not to go over 15 mph. He was one happy boy!

May 23 - Wade went by the house before work one morning and snapped this picture for me. They had begun putting boards along the roof. The framers were already there (at 7:30 am!) and had started burning trash. It's taking shape! :)

June to follow soon!

Hectic Times. Quick Building Update.

Quick update! Life has been hectic since the kids have got out of school. Plus, they have been on the computers more than they should as I'm trying to keep the house clean for showings (got our first offer yesterday; I'll update on how that works out if it does), running to the new house to answer questions and make sure all in on pace plus meeting with the cabinet lady, lighting lady and throw in some doctor appointments, and VBS this week. *whew!* I will be glad for this week to be over and hopefully things will slow down and I can enforce a computer time limit.

Here's the house as of late last week.

Brick, mortar and sand was delivered yesterday. Yay! 

Stone was delivered a couple of weeks ago.

Plus, Rick had put a cardboard attic vent up to see if the size was good or if we needed to go larger. This part of the house will be brick and we don't want it to look like too much brick so we wanted to use a larger attic vent to break up the space.

These are all from my cell phone. And the above one was from last night after we got home from VBS so it's a little blurry from the darkness. I hope to update the last month with more (and better) photos soon. :)